| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I made a 3rd level Psychic for a PFS game this past Saturday. The party was lacking a healer, so I decided to lean into the support role. Looking at the conscious mind options, I decided Infinite Eye would be the best from a support perspective, with the Amp to Guidance and the combat bonuses / information from an Amp’d Mental Scan. As Psychic is Uncommon class with access conditions, I decided that a Rahadoumi secular medic would fit well with providing additional healing to the party as well as fitting in from a lore perspective. Given that, the Precise Discipline fit my character idea better, and having Int as my key ability score let me pick up a good number of skills.
When play testing a class, I generally play a Human, since Natural Ambition lets me pick up an extra class feat. Since I saw this character as healer and support, I picked up Unleash Self-Defense through Natural Ambition, and Mental Balm at 2nd level. I made sure to know Soothe as a signature spell; as the party’s only spell casting healer I figured there was a good chance it would be the only spell I’d cast from my spell slots.
We played the new PFS Intro scenario, 3-01, at subtier 3-4.
Spoilers follow. This is to the best of my recollection, but I played two days ago and my memory is certainly not infallible.
In the first encounter, on my character’s first turn, one of the elemental enemies had gone and closed to 30 feet of me. I started with an Amp’d mental scan to learn about its saves and provide the party bonuses, and followed with a telekinetic projectile. On my second turn, the first enemy was nearly dead and the second enemy moved right next to it, so I scanned enemy #2 and cast another telekinetic projectile. This time, I remembered to use the Aid reaction to help one of my allies. (I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to roll to aid, so I just rolled a dagger attack and figured that would be close enough.) On round 3, I Unleashed Focused Intent and used another telekinetic projectile. (I didn’t need the damage bonus, but figured I might want the free amps in the next two rounds). However, the combat had finished before combat round 4 for me. After combat, the GM told us we had 10 minutes of downtime, and I needed to Refocus, but also Treat Wounds on various party members. Looking through the Refocus description from the Psychic, I could “practice
a craft or activity that gives [me] the mental space to self-reflect”. I argued that, as a Rahadoumi secular medic with Assurance [Medicine], treating wounds was something my character could do sort of automatically / subconsciously, so I’d be able to refocus while doing so. My GM told me he’d allow it today but not set a precedent on it. Fine by me. In any case, having focus points seemed to be very important, and if push came to shove I’d have refocused and told the party member to drink some potions.
In the second encounter, round one was spent striding toward and telekinetic projecting one of the enemies. It then flew towards me and attached itself, so round 2 was using Acrobatics to manually detach it, and then using another telekinetic projectile. On round 3 I finally had the action economy to amp a Mental Scan before attacking it. At that point the combat was winding down; I think I used an Amp’ed Guidance on some sort of after-combat check before taking the time to refocus and treat wounds.
When we got to the abandoned tavern hideout, I used an Amp’d guidance on our party member using Thievery to try and remove the boards quietly. Unfortunately, a simple failure was enough to alert those inside that we were coming in, so my focus point was essentially wasted and I’d enter the combat down one Focus. I had rolled low on initiative, so by the time it was my turn, our party goblin had run in and gotten intimidated by one of the scoundrels. This seemed like a good time to use an amp’ed Guidance with Mental Balm. Unfortunately, my counteract check wasn’t high enough to remove the intimidation; I rolled an 8, getting a 17 on my counteract check; I needed something like an 18 or 19 to succeed. On round 2, one of our party members was dropped, so I used my level 2 soothe to get them back on their feet. Round 3 had me approach to get an enemy into the light of my everburning torch. I then unleashed Self Defense (having cast Guidance and Soothe in prior rounds), and then cast an Amp’d Mental Scan with the benefit of an unleashed psyche. The remainder of the fight (ore or two rounds) had me using Daze or Telekinetic Projectile, and lamenting the damage penalty I was taking.
My takeaways:
When I described my character to the party, I basically told them “Expect me to be a worse Bard”, and that ended up being fairly accurate. My character had one fewer spell slot at 1st and 2nd level, which meant as designated healer I really had to earmark them for Soothes. In exchange, I had a focus pool for psi amps, which I most often used on Mental Scan, which ended up being different but slightly worse than Inspire Courage.
That all said, I realize I was somewhat playing against type by trying to play a support-heavy character on the Psychic chassis, and I’m not going to hold it against the psychic that it’s not as good at support as the quintessential support class (and also one of the stronger classes in the game, period).
I thought the mechanics were neat, and that I could cast an amped cantrip in the first five rounds of combat in most cases (2 points + 3 rounds of Unleashed Psyche). In contrast, going into combat without a full set of focus points really hurt, and in the future I’d really need to weight the costs and benefits of using a focus point on e.g. an amped Guidance if I’m not sure I’ll be able to refocus before the next encounter.
Speaking on Guidance specifically, as an Infinite Eye psychic, it seems to be the only cantrip I would want to use on Mental Balm. Mental Scan is not actually helpful to the target, and Detect Magic doesn’t target people. My issue with Guidance is the “temporarily immune for one hour” part, which really can cut down on it’s utility. Maybe an amp’d version of guidance could get around the temporarily immune restriction? Or some language that says the temporary immunity only applies to the +1 bonus and e.g. the Mental Balm rider could still apply? I dunno.
I hope I get the chance to play one or both of the other conscious minds during the playtest, now that I have a sense for the general play pattern of the Psychic. Overall, I thought it was a fun class. The small number of spell slots is my biggest problem; I see there is a feat at 14th level that can help out there, but that is so far away it might as well not exist from my perspective of mostly PFS play.